Story+1984-12-06+Birmingham,+AL

´´Thanks....(?)....I remember when there´d be these nights when I wouldn´t wanna....I didn´t wanna go home and uh.....my dad used to lock up the frontdoor so we used to have to come in ´round the side, he´d always be sitting in the kitchen with the lights off....and uh.... everybody´s gotta have someplace, someplace they can go when they can´t go home.....”
 * 06.12.84 Birmingham, AL, intro to ´The River´**

´´This is about getting so far off that you can´t go back....”
 * 06.12.84 Birmingham, AL, intro to ´Johnny 99´**

´´We´re gonna be playing a long time tonight, you guys can sit down (?)....here´s a....(?)....it´s a song about blind faith, about believing in ghosts....´cause everybody´s waited for somebody who wasn´t ever coming back.....”
 * 06.12.84 Birmingham, AL, intro to ´Reason to Believe´**

´´Thanks, this is, uh.....this is a song, I guess, uh, everybody kind of marks their lives by ....certain historical events sometimes, you remember exactly where you were, exactly how old you were at a certain time....and uh, like I always remember I was 13 when I heard that, that John Kennedy was assinated, I was in gym class and this kid came running across the field telling us that the president´d been shot.....(?)....and I always remember I was living, living on this farm when a friend of mine called me and told me that Elvis Presley had died ....and uh....it was hard to understand how somebody who had taken away so many people´s loneliness could end up being so lonely, it seems....´cause I think everybody....you know, who picked up a guitar, picked it up for a real simple reason and one of them was because they wanted to be around people, wanted, wanted to have some friends (chuckles) and uh.... I guess....I guess then a dream, a dream that comes, that comes true can be a dangerous thing, this is called ´Johnny Bye Bye´....”
 * 06.12.84 Birmingham, AL, intro to ´Johnny Bye Bye´**

´´Now, this song....this is a song about history....it´s both instructional in purpose and also fun to dance to.....now, I´m not gonna talk to you about the Mesopotamians and I´m not gonna talk to you about the Trojans and I´m not gonna talk to you about the Italians....I´m gonna tell you some personal stuff here....the kind of thing that when I die, you will read in the National Enquirer....or if I have a fight with my girlfriend, you´re gonna read it while I´m still alive....in one of ´em tell-all books.....you see, when I was a lad, I was interested in three things....like my father, he was a poolplayer so I tried to learn how to play pool, then I was interested in the guitar, was the second....and the third thing I was interested in was....you know, that one.....the one everybody´s interested in.....well, one Christmastime, my mother took me to Sears and for 69.95 she bought me this pooltable and like we tied it to the roof of the car, we drove it home and I was holding on to it, when we got it home, my father wouldn´t let me have it downstairs so I put it up in my bedroom....so I used to bring my girlfriends over and I used to say : ´Dad, we´re gonna go upstairs and play pool for a little while´...but, like, but the kitchen was right underneath my bedroom so if he didn´t hear the poolballs knocking around or if he didn´t hear the guitar strumming, he had this broomstick that he used to bang on the ceiling all the time.....to disrupt my concentration.....and so.....but like I kind of had it figured out because I used to, I would pull the pooltable like real over close to the bed and then every once in a while like I would lean up and knock the poolballs around little bit....anyway.....as I got older and I matured....I put away these childish things ....I stopped playing pool ....and of the other two.....the only one that I became really good at was the guitar....but, but the third one....I´m still looking for some volunteers who wanna practise, practise, practise....I´m gonna get it down this year, get it just right....gotta work on it, though....it´s lonely up here.....anyway....in the end ....as the Big Man who knows all things can tell you....everything must pass, in time it all just fades away and you´re left with nothing but.....glory days.....”
 * 06.12.84 Birmingham, AL, intro to ´Glory Days´**

´´Oh....this is uh....I guess around 19....(?) I was living in California, I was thinking about, about the town that I grown up in.....and whenever I think about the place, I get so many, I get so many mixed feelings, I think everybody has kind of a love-hate relationship with the place they were born or they come from....and uh, I guess when I was a kid, I probably had like 85 percent of hate, I couldn´t wait to get out of there, I used to go to New York all the time on the bus....but uh, as I got older, I kind of started thinking about it and I realised that one of the things that made me feel a distance to the place I was born was the fact that I was kind of afraid of belonging to something ´cause when you admit that you belong to something that you means you´ve got some responsobility to that something.....whether it´s your town or your family or your state or your country....so this next song, this is kind of a song about responsobility....and tonight when you go out into the lobby you´re gonna see some folks from the Community Foodbank.....and uh....and what a foodbank does is is every year about 20 percent of the food that gets produced in America just gets wasted and thrown away, they get that food and they get it to the people that need it and tonight....tonight they´re doing something a little different, being that it´s close to Christmas, they´re gonna be collecting and looking for support for Toys For Tots and....that´s real simple....you´re gonna get a chance to play Santa Claus (chuckles) you know, they make sure that kids have a Christmas that come either from underpriviliged families or whose families´ve been hit hard by hard times or unemployment, people who just deserve a little better break, they´re making sure that those kids have some kind of a Christmas and uh.....so tonight when you go out there, you ought to check ´em out, help ´em out....Christmastime (?)....I guess a feeling for the brotherhood that should be amongst us all year long....so tonight you can be a brother, you can be a sister....they need some support in getting them toys to those kids, help ´em out, they´re trying to make your town a more decent place to live....”
 * 06.12.84 Birmingham, AL, intro to ´My Hometown´**

´´Well, now, this is a song.....about the conflict....between worldly things and spiritual health ....between desires of the flesh....and spiritual ecstasy....and now they say you can´t have both....now where did this conflict begin ?.....well, it began in the beginning in a place called the Garden of Eden....well, now, the Garden of Eden was originally believed to have been located in Mesopotamia but the latest theological studies have found that its actual location was ten miles south of Jersey City, off the New Jersey Turnpike....that´s why they call it the Garden State....but now understand....in the Garden of Eden, there were none of the accoutrements of modern living....I mean there were no houses and no little bed you could crawl into at night and snug your head to the little pillow, you couldn´t go home and put your Pop-Tarts in a little toaster and then jump into sack and watch Johnny Carson.....you couldn’t go out on to the highway and buy a cheeseburger if you wanted one.....no Sir !....in the Garden of Eden there was no sin....there was no sex.....man lived in a state of innocence ....now, when it comes to no sex, I prefer the state of guilt that I constantly live in....but before the beginning of the tour I decided to make a spiritual journey to the location of the Garden of Eden to find out the answer to some of these mysteries, why body pulls me in one way and why my soul pulls me in another way....well, I hitchhiked out there and I found out that that location is now taken up by Happy Dan´s Celebrity Used Car Lot....so I went in..... the man looked at me, he said ´Son, you need a yellow convertible , a four-door DeVille with a Continental spare, wide chrome wheels, air-conditioning, automatic heat, a full fold-out bed in your backseat, eight-track tapedeck , TV and a phone so you can speak to your baby when you’re driving all alone’...I said ‘I’ll take two’....but then I said ´But Dan, that´s not really the reason I came, I wanna know the answer to some of this conflict, where did all this temptation begin and he said ´Well, son, that´s easy....because right here....before the beginning of time.....on these beautiful, a hundred industrially-zoned acres was the sweetest little paradise that man has ever seen, now, in the Garden of Eden there was many wonderous things : there was a Tree of Life, there was a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, there was a man, Adam, there was a woman, Eve, and she looked so fine....and when Adam kissed her, it was the first time that a man had ever kissed a woman....and she had legs that were long and pale....and when Adam touched her, it was the first time that a man had ever touched a woman....and then they lay down in the green grass.....and when Adam.... well, Son, it was the first time....but now right here tonight on this backlot....for 99.95 and no money down....I have the getaway car that they used to escape from the Garden of Eden, old Satan came slithering up on his belly and turned their love into a betrayal and sent them running down into the darkness....if you´ve got the nerve to ride....I´ve got the keys....to the first....pink Cadillac....´´
 * 06.12.84 Birmingham, AL, intro to ´Pink Cadillac´**

´´(beginning of the intro is missing from the source tape)....I was spending most of my time trying to figure out some way to make her happy again.....and it got to where. she started..... wanted to stay home all the time, she´d hide my keys so I couldn´t go out at night....and it got hard to make her understand that when I took the car out.....and when I won, it was the only time that I, I ever felt really good about myself....and that to have just one thing....one thing in your whole life that makes you feel proud of yourself....I don´t think that´s too much for anybody to ask....is it ?.... (....) Well, that was the night.....that was the night that we left....and we still don´t know where we´re going yet....but I guess that´ll come in time.....but sometimes it seems like time, time gets running so short on you.....just keeps running shorter and shorter....but there´s not much you can do but....I guess but keep going....and keep searching....and keep going and keep going, keep going.....”
 * 06.12.84 Birmingham, AL, intro to ´Racing in the Street´**

´´Thanks....I´d like to just take a minute and thank everybody for coming down to the show here in Birmingham.....thanks for giving us such a warm welcome to the South (?)....I´d like to thank all those kids who were at the hotel (?)....and uh, I´d like to thank you for your support of the Toys for Tots and Community Foodbank....sometimes, sometimes people in trouble seem, it´s seems like they´re a long way away and people suffering hard times, it seems like, like it´s happening in some distant place....but uh....it´s happening right here in your hometown and a lot of the power of rock and roll has been the power of friendship and the power of community and in the end nobody wins unless everybody wins.....”
 * 06.12.84 Birmingham, AL, intro to ´Born to Run´**

//Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi//